Inside 6-year ginseng harvest for Jung Kwan Jang

A Korea Ginseng Corp. (KGC) employee conducts analysis inside a lab at the company's Jung Kwan Jang R&D Center in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, Monday. Courtesy of KGC

ICHEON, Gyeonggi Province — Yun Jeong-sik, a fourth-generation ginseng farmer in his 40s, was busy overseeing the harvest at his 9,900-square-meter farm on Monday. Around 50 migrant workers from Southeast Asia lined up along the cultivated mounds, where six-year-old ginseng roots lay hidden beneath the soil, ready to be unearthed and exposed to sunlight for the first time.

Once tractors ploughed the mounds and pulled the crops from beneath the soil, workers handpicked them and collected them in yellow baskets, each barcoded, issued by the Korea Ginseng Corp. (KGC). The company, which runs global ginseng brand Jung Kwan Jang, has contracted with Yun to purchase the day's entire harvest. The same arrangement applied to Yun’s eight other farms in Icheon and Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, where he plans to harvest between September and November, the annual ginseng harvesting season.

Yun, who has been farming ginseng for 20 years, said the plant root, well known for its health benefits and use in traditional medicine, is difficult to grow. Quality ginseng requires very specific cultivation conditions, including temperature (under 30 degrees Celsius), water drainage, shade, soil types and pesticide use, regulated by the government. In addition to the six years to grow, there are two additional years needed to make the fields suitable before planting seedlings, so each farm requires eight years of relentless attention to grow world-class ginseng.

Workers collect fresh ginsengs at a farm in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, Monday, following a tractor-assisted harvest. Courtesy of Korea Ginseng Corp.

“It’s hard to grow ginseng past the fourth year because of their demanding growth conditions. That is why six-year-old ginseng has higher quality,” Yun said.

“Considering climate change, we also need genetically modified seedlings that are more resistant to heat and have higher yields. Last year, persistent summer heat caused our crops to stop growing in June. In winter, we also found that the sun shades over our crops all crumbled under the weight of heavy snow, so we had to rebuild them.”

The farm is one of 10,000 nationwide that supply six-year-old ginseng to KGC. On harvest day, researchers from the company visit the farms and take crop samples to test their quality before they are processed for Jung Kwan Jang. KGC operates manufacturing plants in Wonju, Gangwon Province, and Buyeo County, South Chungcheong Province, where ginseng is turned into steamed and dried to become red ginseng, and made into products including extract syrup, jelly, edible film, pills and nutritional drinks.

Harvested ginsengs from a farm in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, Monday / Courtesy of Korea Ginseng Corp.

The Jung Kwan Jang R&D Center in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, ensures the quality of these products. Their high-rise facility in the city’s bio industry cluster also serves as a tourism hub, promoting ginseng as a K-health supplement.

The facility showcases the natural ingredients used in various Jung Kwan Jang products, now sold in 40 countries, including the United States and China, and explains how each ingredient is tested for its nutritional effects. It also examines the origins of key ingredients such as agarwood, lingzhi mushroom and dried rehmannia root — a crucial step to verify their quality and ensure that the nutritional information on every product remains accurate for consumers.

“We run our own research and development, which saves us cost and time in production while ensuring quality. It distinguishes us from other red ginseng distributors in Korea,” said Kim Sun-young, a researcher with KGC’s R&D Planning Team.